Steam and Sorcery
Eighteenth Day of the Third Month 294 AC
Bloodstone Isle, Experimental Track Number One
As the engine roared along the tracks, to the clank of steel gears and the whistle of leashed steam, Beryl could not hold back a whoop of joy, a reminder that she was by one measure no older than twenty and by another not even one year old. They were going almost twice as fast as a pegasus on the wing, faster than a speeding dragon even, clattering along the steel track, and there was barely any magic to it. It had been Beryl's idea to turn the tremendous force of steam to more than launching bolts out of siege weapons. And it had worked it, really worked.
"Smooth as silk she runs! We did it!" she cheered along side the chittering tinker fey who had done so much to push the cause of steam forward in the past years even as their enthusiasm at times gave more down to earth engineers pause. And with her cheered the young and not so young 'gear-heads' of the University's Applied Physics Department. Though they had gotten the name as part of a less than friendly gibe from scholarum mages who discounted mundane studies in favor of the arcane, they had made it their own and they had prospered and grown even as the projects grew more ambitious.
Of course, the giant grant from the crown they had gotten this month, as well as help from herself and Anu in their official capacity, had pushed the development forward enormously. That allowed them to leap over bench models and small scale experiments and straight to
Bertha, which could actually carry passengers or meaningful amounts of cargo.
Named for the sweetheart of one of the lead engineers and also incidentally the sister of another in the sort of tangled affair that had been tense when revealed and cause for laughter and drinks all around in retrospect, the engine could hit a top speed of thirty miles per hour and pull forty tons of mass rolling along the track without struggling. It was also as tireless as the Ever-Flame that fueled its boiler, though one clever lad had pointed out that you didn't even strictly need a magical flame. You could just burn charcoal, whale oil, or maybe even wood to make an engine like
Bertha run, although the engineering challenges of the latter might just be too large to result in a functioning machine.
Little as Beryl liked to consider the possibility, the idea of a way to keep the empire together even if the Whispering Braziers failed and the Three-Eyed Ravens fell from the sky was satisfying. She shook her head. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about how the bloody world could end, they had to take the engine through her paces and then write up their final report.
"Any thoughts on what we might name the devices as a whole?" Anu asked from beside her. The brass man was less prone to cheering and whooping, but the smile on his face was no less genuine for it.
Beryl shrugged. She did not care for the need of some engineers and especially academics to give exacting names to their works. The best names were titles gained in the doing of something. "Just call them Berthas."
"I think that would be stretching the young lady's forbearance rather far," the mage-smith replied with a shake of his head. "Perhaps locomotive, for 'that which moves', will serve as both an instructive and easy name to recall."
"Sure," Beryl replied, privately certain someone would shorten the four syllable word the moment it went into circulation
Steam's Motion Given Form Complete (45/35; 65,000 IM spent)
***
Legion Base Westheaven
As chance would have it, that very same day another of Beryl's sisters was also celebrating her success, and if hers walked on armored feet by sorcery and golem-craft rather than rolling on wheels through the power of steam, that made the cheers no less heartfelt.
"Did you see that, punched right though the bear's head, 'e did..."
"Bear? That's nothing, you should've seen it take on the wandering mountain. Now that should've been in the arena and up on the mirrors..."
Valeria was very glad for the convenience of conjured opponents to put the Warden Armor through its peaces and even more glad for the generally positive reactions from the legionnaires. After all, these were toys most of them would never come close to playing with. Rather than any veiled resentment, the soldiers seemed genuinely enthusiastic to see it deployed in the next campaign, rumored to be westwards. She did not have the heart to tell them most of the lords of Westeros did not have anything that would require a Warden Pattern armor to fight. Maybe when they got to the Westerlands....
Tireless Steel by Sorcery Moved Complete 11/5
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OOC: The reason I put the cost of the Steam action here is that I did not see it on the google sheet and I wanted to ensure it would be up and easy to find in order to deduct from your budget. Not yet edited